Pull the revenue and efficiency levers, not just the cost ones: raise prices on value, fix the wrong-fit and over-serviced accounts, lift utilisation sensibly, and keep your AI efficiency gains as margin. Cost-cutting has a floor; pricing and delivery have far more headroom. Most mid-agency margin problems are revenue-quality problems in disguise.

Hand each leader genuine ownership and authority, build the decision-making rhythms and reporting that replace your day-to-day involvement, move your relationships and new business onto the team, then actually step out in stages and fix whatever breaks. The 'gone for a year' test is the same as the value-creation test: the more truly it's passed, the more the business is worth.

Grow the rest of the book faster than the big client and deepen your hold on that account, so its share falls and its risk drops. Buyers heavily discount, or walk from, an agency where one client is a large slice of revenue, because losing it post-deal could sink the business. Diversifying takes time, which is another reason to prepare years ahead.

A good NED brings outside experience and challenge, holds the executive (including you) accountable, helps with the big strategic and governance decisions, and acts as a sounding board and mirror for the founder. At this stage they also help professionalise the board, reduce founder isolation, and prepare the business for whatever comes next, including an exit.

An EOT sells a controlling stake to a trust on behalf of all employees, with significant UK tax advantages (currently no capital gains tax for the seller on a qualifying sale) and a strong culture and legacy story. The trade-offs are usually a lower price than a trade sale and proceeds paid over time from future profits, so it suits founders who value continuity and a clean exit over the maximum number.

Compete on the things money can’t easily buy: real ownership, growth, a leader they respect, and work they’re proud of. You won’t always win a pure salary war, so don’t fight only on that ground. Pay fairly, then make staying about progression, autonomy and culture, the reasons good people leave big agencies in the first place.

An operating system helps if your problem is lack of rhythm, clear ownership and accountability, which it often is at this size. But the system is a vehicle for the disciplines, clear goals, owned numbers, regular cadence, honest meetings, not magic in itself. Adopt the disciplines first; the named framework is just one way to package them.

Compete on a different axis so the comparison stops being about price. Premium pricing holds when you're clearly differentiated, by niche expertise, by outcomes, by relationship, by risk carried, so a budget shop isn't a like-for-like alternative. If clients can directly compare you on price, the problem is undifferentiated positioning, not the price itself.

Other agency owners at a similar stage, in a structured peer group or with an experienced advisor or NED. Your leadership team can’t be your confidants on the things that affect them, ownership, their own performance, the future of the business, so you need people outside it who’ve sat in your chair and will tell you the truth.